Thank you for contacting again. We are aware of the Vitamin C Foundation. They are proponents of ascorbic acid so of course they would like you to believe that ascorbic acid alone equals the vitamin C complex, which is simply not true.

The advantage of taking a whole food vitamin C goes far beyond the ascorbic acid portion of vitamin C. We have been led to believe that ascorbic acid is true vitamin C, when in reality, ascorbic acid is only one molecule out of the hundreds that make up food-form vitamin C. Food-form vitamin C provides your body with much more than just ascorbic acid. Our bodies require food-form vitamin C to manufacture collagen, which is the gluet hat holds your body together. Our bodies do not obtain all the pieces of the puzzle needed to manufacture collagen from ascorbic acid alone.

While it may be true that food-form ascorbic acid is basically the same as USP (United States Pharmacopeias) ascorbic acid, we are looking at much more than ascorbic acid with food-form vitamin C. There are all the other hundreds of molecules that we are getting with Pure Radiance C. The studies that were done that show vitamin C to be helpful to the immune system were done with food sources of vitamin C, not just ascorbic acid. When just ascorbic acid is introduced in these studies, they do not get the same immune-supporting results. The more studies that are done on ascorbic acid seem to show that rather than being an antioxidant, ascorbic acid creates free radicals. Ascorbic acid is alsovery hard on your stomach, because it is acidic inside the body, unlike whole food Vitamin C, which is alkalizing.

You may wish to look into the research and the studies done comparing whole-food vitamin C and synthetic ascorbic acid, as I think you would find some of the information you are looking for in these studies.

For obvious reasons, we can not decide for you whether to use whole food C or isolated ascorbic acid. Perhaps the truth is in the taking! If the isolated ascorbic acid at thehigh dosage that your doctor suggested does not work for you, try our whole food Pure Radiance C and see how you feel.

The Synergy Company specializes inutrition in its food form to better nourish the body. We believe supplementation with isolates is inferior to supplementation with whole foods.

We hope this information has been helpful to you. Thank you for your interest in The SynergyCompany.

Thank you for your inquiry and interest in The Synergy Company products.I'm so very sorry to hear about your health challenge.You mentioned that your doctor is recommending 16,000 mg of vitamin C per day. The FDA defines vitamin C as ascorbic acid. I am presuming that your doctoris referring to vitamin C in the form of ascorbic acid, although I'msurprised that a holistic doctor would recommend that. To equal16,000 mgof ascorbic acid you would need to consume about 24.6 tsp servings of PureRadiance C per day. One jar of Pure Radiance C would provide 180 tspservings, about a week's supply, for $24.95. It is interesting tothink thatif you were to try to get 16,000 mg of ascorbic acid by justeating food, itwould be necessary to eat, literally, bushels of berries.

Comparing amounts of ascorbic acid to the whole food vitamin C in PureRadiance C is a bit difficult because they are not really the same thing.Whole food vitamin C is much more than ascorbic acid, as this acid is always connected to a multitude of other compounds wherever it is found in food sources. The health benefits we associate with vitamin C come from not only ascorbic acid but from the synergistic interaction of numerousphytonutrients including bioflavinoids, polyphenols,catechins,anthocyanins, rutin, enzymes and tyrosinase. Studies have also shown that whole food vitamin C is also more bioavailable than isolated ascorbic acid.

Ascorbic acid can be very hard on your stomach, because it is acidic insidethe body, unlike whole food vitamin C, which is alkalizing. You have totake 5x the amount of ascorbic acid vs whole food vitamin C.

Concerning potency, again it is difficult to compare synthetic isolatedascorbic acid and the whole food nutrition in Pure Radiance C. In general,potency of any product depends on the quality of the ingredients and howcarefully they are handled. Pure Radiance C offers high quality, 100%natural vitamin C made with wild crafted and organic ingredients, bottled inamber glass to protect its nutrients. Our product has all the naturalenzymes found in the fruits, berries, and sproutsit is made of. So I amassuming that is what you mean by the erm"bio-active."

I hope this information is helpful. Please be in touch if you have furtherquestions about this or any other questions that we might answer for you.Again, we appreciate your interest in Pure Radiance C!Best Wishes,

Customer ServiceThe Synergy CompanyNourishing Your\Life Force!

I have put in bold the statements I disagree with.

Owen R. Fonorow, Orthomolecular NaturopathMy statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Any product mentioned is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”

When are the whole foods C people gonna shut up with their made-up and harmful nonsense.

A Sunrider rep was showing my business group her vitamin C product. Each pill contained 125 mg of whole food source vitamin C. I figured out that the cost was about $3 per gram.

I've never seen one thing to back up their statements. When face to face with these people, you can usually shut them up by telling them that tens of thousands of studies have shown the effectiveness of pure powder.

Truth is, I do believe that the 50 mg of vitamin C in an orange is better than 50 or maybe even 100 mg of powder, but not better than a gram.

And I used to believe in the tooth fairy. If this is true, why does 10 mg of "synthetic" ascorbic acid daily prevent frank scurvy?

Owen R. Fonorow, Orthomolecular NaturopathMy statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Any product mentioned is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”

sweetjames wrote:If a person took 10 mg synthetic vitamin c daily, how could they know that is what is preventing the scurvy? Surely they are eating food with vitamin c daily as well.

They wouldn't. But science has done a good job (according to Pauling) showing that 10 mg daily of vitamin C prevents frank scurvy.

Owen R. Fonorow, Orthomolecular NaturopathMy statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Any product mentioned is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”